


Affliction

by youcouldmakealife



Series: Impaired Judgment (and other excuses) [133]
Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-15 14:28:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29065842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youcouldmakealife/pseuds/youcouldmakealife
Summary: Jared’s back on the ice for literally one game before Bryce fucks up his shoulder. They’re cursed. They have to be.“You play a high impact contact sport professionally,” Stephen says when Jared says as much, talking to Jared likes he’s a toddler. “Injuries are inevitably a part of it.”“Cursed,” Jared insists.
Relationships: OMC/OMC
Series: Impaired Judgment (and other excuses) [133]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/849798
Comments: 40
Kudos: 308





	Affliction

Jared’s back on the ice for literally one game before Bryce fucks up his shoulder. They’re cursed. They have to be.

“You play a high impact contact sport professionally,” Stephen says when Jared says as much, talking to Jared likes he’s a toddler. “Injuries are inevitably a part of it.”

“Cursed,” Jared insists.

Bryce’s shoulder’s also in that annoying in-between where he can’t leave Calgary for travel or recuperation. He’s a big sulky baby when he’s particularly sore, and Jared will never, ever tell him it’s kind of endearing because obviously he shouldn’t encourage that sort of behaviour.

It’s cute though. Would it be cute if Jared was with him all day? Probably not, but Jared would take the trade off. Chaz and Ash periodically check in on him, and Jared’s parents bring Bryce groceries like he doesn’t just order them delivered anyway, and it’s kind of comforting knowing Bryce is being taken care of, even though Jared hates that he can’t do it himself.

The Bryceless Flames fly into town. Jared gets dinner with Chaz and does not sulk through it, no matter what Chaz says. Chaz should appreciate his presence.

Bryce isn’t game ready when the Canucks fly into town, though he’s close, and the Canucks take advantage of the Bryce Marcus shaped hole in the Flames’ roster and pull out a triumphant victory that Jared has no compunctions rubbing Bryce’s face in, since he didn’t like, personally lose. Also because they keep swapping spots in the standings — the Flames’ middle six stepped up in Bryce’s absence, which is good for the Flames but annoying for Jared, who has to play them — and Jared’s feeling a bit of that rivalry right now.

They spend Christmas in Calgary, split it between Jared’s parents, where Elaine’s staying, and some time alone. Or alone together, he guesses. Bryce gets his all-clear to play right before it, so he is literally like an excited kid on Christmas, hyper as fuck, all jittery energy that he’s been containing for the six weeks he was sidelined.

“Chill before you injure yourself again,” Jared says, after like, the seventeenth time Bryce has done a lap of their apartment just to like, do a lap of their apartment.

“I miss hockey,” Bryce says. He’s said that a lot, usually in the sulky baby voice, but this time he says it with big bright eyes and a grin cracking his face, a boy in love with the game.

“C’mere,” Jared says, pulling Bryce into his lap, and helps him expend that excess energy in a more productive way. 

*

Jared thinks about that moment a lot in the coming months: Bryce and his bright eyes and the coiled tension in his body, the excitement to get back on the ice, to play his game, to help his team. Bryce like a little kid on Christmas. Bryce happy.

Bryce stops smiling when he gets back. 

His play’s a bit off when he gets back, the same as so many players after they come back from an injury, but because the media have had a hate-on for Bryce since his sophomore year, it’s immediately blown completely out of proportion. But while the media’s always been hard on Bryce, the fans aren’t as hypercritical — they know who’s winning them games. Except Bryce stops winning them games. Bryce stops winning them games, and they turn on him, lightning quick.

It’s this ugly feedback loop, where the worse Bryce plays, the worse the media and the fanbase lands on him. It gets into his head. Bryce is shaken, you don’t need to be married to him to see he has absolutely zero confidence in himself right now, will pass instead of shoot, hesitate just long enough for the puck to get taken away. He gets a few, a player as talented as him is always going to get a few, but every time it seems like his offence is coming back it slips right through his fingers.

It doesn’t help that as frustrated as Bryce is playing, he keeps taking penalties he can’t afford to. Bryce can be a liability when it comes to taking bad calls, but he makes up for it. Except right now. 

And it’s fucking killing Bryce, he’s angry and sad and empty and numb at turns every time Jared talks to him, and Jared lets him vent, listens when Bryce needs him to listen, says all the reassuring things that are cliche because they’re true. All players have slumps. He just needs to get his confidence back. He needs to stop overthinking things and just go out and play hockey. Things Bryce’s coach is telling him, things Chaz is probably telling him. He must be sick of hearing them by now but he never cuts Jared off, lets Jared say them, maybe because he knows it makes Jared feel a little better, because at least saying something isn’t doing nothing.

Trade deadline day’s always an anxious one, but Jared feels genuinely sick going into it. There’ve been rumours about Bryce, nothing with any of the major insiders, but enough smoke that Jared can’t dismiss it, especially with the way the city’s turned on him, all at once. Bryce has a no-move clause in the back-end of his contract, but it doesn’t kick in until the offseason, so he could be headed anywhere right now.

“Fuck!” Jared says, when the tenth time he feverishly scrolls down TSN’s twitter feed post-practice to catch up, ‘Chaz Rossi to the New York Rangers in exchange for Erik Stadler’ appears. He feels like he just got gut punched when he was expecting to get punched in the face instead. 

He gets a number of raised eyebrows, some concerned faces. They all know what day it is.

“Friend got traded,” Jared says weakly. 

“Sucks man,” Montrose says. Considering he was a Devil a month ago, he clearly empathizes. “Know they say it’s a business, but always fucking sucks.”

“Yeah,” Jared mumbles.

It’s not just that it’s Chaz, and that Chaz has spent his entire adult life in Calgary, that Ashley’s in Calgary, that Chaz is about to be thousands of miles from his family, and his girlfriend, who’s still finishing college, and a city he’s lived in for more than half a decade. It’s not that. Well, it’s partly that, Jared feels for him, it’s also —

Chaz was the only fucking guy on that team that gives a shit about Bryce. So now it’s going to be nobody. Nobody in Bryce’s corner, nobody to hang out with on roadies, or team dinners, nobody to invite him over so he doesn’t go back into that shell he keeps hiding in, shutting out the world like it’ll help.

Jared adds _I’m so fucking sorry, guys_ to the group chat, which already has Raf and Grace’s reactions. Nothing from Chaz, but he’s probably pretty busy right now. Nothing from Ash, but she probably is too. Nothing from Bryce.

Jared calls him on his way home, gets voicemail. Calls him after he eats lunch, gets voicemail. The deadline comes and goes, and Bryce isn’t moved. Jared sends him a _call me_ text and then calls him again before dinner when he doesn’t, finally getting through.

“Hi,” Bryce says.

“Hi,” Jared says. “Are you okay?”

“I mean,” Bryce says. “No. Not really.”

“Babe,” Jared says.

“I think I broke a wall,” Bryce says.

“What do you mean you think you broke a wall,” Jared says.

Bryce sends him a picture of their living room. There is a hole in the wall where there should not be a hole. It is in the shape of what, Jared can guess, is Bryce’s fist. Maybe he just threw something though. Jared hopes he just threw something.

“Did you punch through our wall?” Jared says.

Bryce’s silence is sheepish.

“You’re lucky you didn’t break your fucking _hand_ ,” Jared snaps. He’s probably going to have to ask his dad to fix it, because fuck knows he doesn’t trust the discretion of some random Calgarian contractor not to spread a ‘Bryce Marcus Punched a Wall (We Presume Because He Wanted to Be Traded, That Ingrate)’ to add fuel to the fire. “Are you icing it?”

“Yeah,” Bryce says. “I just — he was literally the only good part of playing for the Flames right now. Everything else is shit, and it’s just — fuck.”

“I know, B,” Jared says. “I’m so fucking pissed for you. And like, Chaz, obviously.”

“They should have fucking traded me,” Bryce says. “I — at this point I don’t care where the fuck I go as long as it’s not here.”

“You just have to gut it out until summer,” Jared says, probably for the hundredth time. It’s become a bit of a mantra. “Your NMC kicks in and then you have control over where you go. Season. Playoffs, maybe. And then you’re out.”

“At this rate I’ll go to the fucking Cup Final with these assholes,” Bryce mutters. “We come to Vancouver next week.”

“I know,” Jared says. It’s been circled in his mental calendar from the start, and knowing that it’s coming up has been a bit of a mantra for him too. 

“Can you like, tie me to your bed and refuse to let me leave at the end?” Bryce says.

Jared snorts. “Yeah, sounds like a solid plan. I’ll practice my knot tying skills.”

“Okay,” Bryce says. “I’m going to — I’m going to try really hard to not drink tonight but if I fail can I call you drunk without you getting mad at me?”

“Yeah,” Jared says. “As long as you stay home and don’t go around punching Flames fans.”

“They’d deserve it,” Bryce mumbles.

*

Bryce looks — rough when he gets to Vancouver, empty-handed slump shouldered at Jared’s door. It’s kind of a shock. Like, Jared’s seen pictures, clips of play, seen him on video calls, but it isn’t until he’s within arms reach, face to face, that he can see how washed out Bryce is, exhausted, like some kind of source of — light or something has burnt out.

What they do is a lot more violent than a hug, though that’s the closest word Jared can think of, Bryce breathing fast in his ear like he just got off a shift, Jared’s ribs aching, Bryce crushing the breath out of his lungs, and Jared doesn’t give a fuck, he doesn’t, he holds on just as tight and he lets it hurt for as long as Bryce needs it to.

“I need you to be like, within arm’s reach until I have to leave,” Bryce says. “I know that sounds pathetic, but—”

“It doesn’t,” Jared says. “I can do that. Like, maybe not during the game, that’d raise some eyebrows, but—”

Bryce’s laugh sounds torn out of him. Jared wants to burn the entire city of Calgary down. He’ll tell his family to get out first.

“I don’t want to do this anymore,” Bryce says, voice so small, and Jared holds on tighter.

*

Jared’s as good as his word. Maybe not arm’s reach, but definitely not far from it, and even then it’s when they have to disentangle themselves for necessities like eating. Basically he’s got a two-hundred plus pound man clinging to him like a limpet for the short-term. If that sounds like complaint: it is not. Jared thinks he needs it just as much as Bryce does, Bryce was just the one who had the guts to ask for it.

Currently Bryce is more of a blanket than a limpet, pinning Jared to the bed, all hot skin and stubborn affection. Jared briefly tried to escape to grab a wash cloth, but it did not go very well. He’s resigned himself to not leaving this bed until Bryce’s curfew.

“What time’s your curfew?” Jared asks.

“I’m not going back to the hotel,” Bryce says. “Practice is optional tomorrow. I’ll take a cab to Rogers Arena for pregame.” 

“And if someone notices you just ghosted?” Jared says.

“Mom lives here,” Bryce says. “Can just say I fell asleep at her place. I doubt they’d get all worked up.”

“But if they do?” Jared asks. Usually that’d be true, but Jared is extremely aware how thin the ice Bryce is standing on is right now. Bryce is aware of that too.

“I don’t care,” Bryce says.

“B,” Jared says.

“I literally don’t care, Jared, if they’re going to act like I’m a fucking problem child I’ll be a fucking problem child,” Bryce snaps.

Jared sighs. “I’m not going to like, kick you out, but it’s a bad idea.”

Bryce shrugs jerkily. “I’ll be there when I need to be there, that’s all they’re paying for. And if you did kick me out mom would take me in. Fuck the hotel.”

This is very true.

“I just want to have like, one night where I get to be with you and just be me and not to think about their bullshit and I just—” Bryce says. “Can we have that?”

“Yeah,” Jared says. “Of course.”

“Thanks,” Bryce says. “Thank you.”

“Stop thanking me for being like, a bare minimum husband,” Jared says.

“You’re a maximum husband,” Bryce says earnestly.

“Okay but like am I allowed to make fun of you right now?” Jared says.

Bryce’s eyes narrow.

“Because that was like the worst fucking—” Jared says, and laughs when Bryce bites his shoulder.

*

They wake up tangled together. Have morning sex, then separate showers, because the stall is way too small for two people. Eat breakfast. Eat lunch not long after with Elaine. They go to Rogers Arena: Jared the home side, Bryce the visitor’s. The next time they see each other is on the ice. Jared skates over to centre ice, but Bryce isn’t looking at him, doesn’t see him, and after a moment, feeling awkward, he skates back over to Gabe.

Jared has an assist. Bryce goes pointless. The Flames still win the game by two.

Bryce gets on a plane.

Jared is so, so fucking tired, but he knows he isn’t even close to as tired as Bryce is.


End file.
